


a life full of color

by spinningincircles



Series: drabbles [8]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Prompt Fill, Soft Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:33:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25898245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinningincircles/pseuds/spinningincircles
Summary: Eddie's heart breaks a little, because he remembers this kid, the kid who got shoved to the wayside as he crawled in mud and stood at attention, learning to be a cog in a machine so much bigger than himself.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: drabbles [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765609
Comments: 8
Kudos: 96





	a life full of color

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elisela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/gifts).



> for eli's sensory prompt: finding old photographs you'd forgotten about
> 
> originally posted [here](https://tylerhunklin.tumblr.com/post/626284642951184384/55-finding-old-photographs-youd-forgotten-about)
> 
> title from "the war was in color" by carbon leaf

Buck’s rolling around on the living room floor, clutching his sides as his almost hysterical laughter echoes off the walls. 

“I can’t believe you had  _ frosted tips _ in middle school!” he chokes out, looking at the picture in his hands and laughing all over again.

“They were  _ very _ cool back then, all my friends had them too.”

“You look like you should be in a boy band!”

Eddie feels his cheeks turn red as he snatches the picture away from Buck, putting it back in the box. They’d been going through it all afternoon after recovering it from Abuela’s attic, Eddie reliving his childhood and teenage years through glossy stills. He rifles through another row, bypassing a family trip to the Grand Canyon and Sophia’s high school graduation, when he stops at an 8x10 sticking out above the rest. He picks it up and feels his pulse jump.

It’s him from the shoulders up, 18 years old and still baby faced, dressed in his Army blues in front of an American flag. His hair is cropped and perfectly gelled, and he’s looking straight at the camera, face stoic and eyes blank.

His heart breaks a little, because he remembers this kid, but he also remembers the kid from 10 weeks before this photo was taken. That kid who drove around the neighborhood with his windows down singing Kenny Chesney songs, who was first chair cellist in his school’s orchestra, who just wanted to find himself somewhere other than his hometown. 

The kid who got shoved to the wayside as he crawled in mud and stood at attention, learning to be a cog in a machine so much bigger than himself.

“You look very serious,” Buck says, hooking his chin over Eddie’s shoulder.

“I was scared,” he answers honestly, because he was. He remembers finishing Basic and not feeling that fulfillment he was promised he would. He still just felt empty and unbearably numb, and he didn’t know when that feeling would go away. “And sad, too, I think. And a lot of other things the Army told me they would fix.”

“Did they? Fix them.”

“Not really.”

“But  _ you _ did,” Buck says, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind, thighs bracketing Eddie’s waist where he sits. “Eventually, you did. You fixed them all on your own.”

He thinks of how different his life is from what he thought it would be when he was first deployed. He never expected to have a family like this, to be so close to his son, to have someone to love him through every high and every low. He wishes he could go back and let 18 year old Eddie know that everything  _ will  _ turn out okay, in time. That he’d finally take control of his own life and mold it into what he wanted, and he’d be  _ happy.  _ The numbness would go away.

“Yeah,” Eddie says to the boy in the picture. “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> come prompt me on [tumblr](https://tylerhunklin.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
